Folks have been catching Catfish on many different concoctions and un natural offerings throughout time, un natural meaning the offering is not normally found in the catfish’s environment such as deer hearts, ivory soap, kool aid soaked chicken breast to name a few,but I guess, of all the un natural baits that have been thrown at the catfish over the years, the chicken liver is going to be hard to beat as far as attract ability goes.

Chicken liver will flat out catch catfish but it will mainly attract the channel cats but the one drawback to using chicken livers for bait is, it’s not angler friendly.

Although chicken livers make a great bait for channel cats and is very easy to obtain at most grocery stores.

It has still always been sort of a challenge to fish with chicken liver as they are hard to keep on the hook as they are being casted to the cats.

“Lobbing it” as I call it was my best attempt to get the liver where I wanted it be and still sometimes I couldn’t get it where I wanted it to land for fear of throwing it off my hook; lobbing it is a gentle side hand cast will generally get it out there close to my target without slinging the chicken livers off.

Don’t get discouraged though, I have a solution for this annoying issue of keeping them on the hook long enough to catch a catfish.

Thanks to our modern medicine field, you can now fish with chicken livers at your favorite fishin hole and sling them pesky livers anywhere you want without worrying about slinging them off of your hook.
It’s called tubular elastic; it’s designed in the medical world for keeping gauze in place on different body parts such as legs, arms and fingers and it comes in many sizes for each need but catfish anglers have repurposed the 1 inch tubular material for a new way to keep chicken livers on your hook and help your catch ratio improve.

Here’s how it works
1. Using some thread or light lb. fishing line tie off a two inch section of tubular elastic with a simple over hand knot and cut it behind the knot leaving one end closed and one end open, creating a bag to load the livers in.
2. Now turn the tube inside out and give it a good stretch to tighten to insure the splice will not come loose as it now creates a bag.
3. Now you begin to load the livers in the bag putting in enough in each bag to expand the elastic so it will keep the liver in a compact ball.
4. This step will close the tubular bag up, securing the liver in the bag. Simple run the hook through the top of the tubular elastic bag and give it a twist, it doesn’t matter if the hook makes it through any of the liver at this point, we just want to secure the top so the liver cant fall out or be slung off.
5. Give the bait a twist and run the hook back through the top of the bag a couple of times to help stretch the elastic even more to expose the livers as it starts to bleed and soak through the bag.
6. On the last step, stab the point of the hook through the meat or bulkiest part of the liver leaving the hook exposed for the final assault.

With this method you are now able to fish with chicken livers like never before without worrying about slinging your bait off your hook or even having the small fish steal your bait. Of course the small ones can still aggravate us with pecks rolls but it is extremely hard for a small fish to completely rob us of our chicken liver bait now giving us a better chance of a good fish hook up.
This is ideal for most all presentations used in catfishing, I’ve used it and it works well when still fishing from the bank or anchored boat and I’ve also used it for float fishing around cover.
A once delicate and hard to fish but popular catfish bait has become very reliable and durable bait for catching channel catfish in rivers, streams and lakes when loaded into the tubular elastic bags.

Tips on using chicken livers
Fresh not frozen

Chicken livers are awesome bait for catfish I think because of the blood content within the liver itself and I believe it is what does a lot of the attracting plus it’s an awesome bait because it is so easy to obtain by everyday anglers, but remember all chicken livers is not the same and the liver that you want to avoid is chicken livers that have been frozen.

Some grocery stores handle fresh livers and these are the ones you want and others handle frozen livers and the fresh livers will always be better as they haven’t been broken down from the freezing process.

When you are choosing the livers for bait always look at the freshness of the livers by looking at the reddish tint of the contents, fresh livers have a stronger more durable texture for using for catfish and will not be mushy as the frozen ones will get, which will allow the liver to escape from the tubular bag much too quickly so fresh is always the better option.

Keep em cool

For chicken livers to remain firm and suitable for catfish bait it is always better to keep them cool, it seems the warmer they get the more delicate and mushy they become.

I keep mine in a small cooler until I’m ready to load a sack for bait but sometimes I will pre-load 20 or so bags before I get to my fishing destination, but I will keep them in zip loc bags and away from direct contact with any ice until I’m ready to use I want all the blood juices to not be diluted with melted ice water.

Now is the perfect time to use this method bait preparation for channel catfish as they have recently quit spawning and now are feeding heavily to regain their strength for the remaining summer.

If you would like to try this method of fishing with chicken livers and land more catfish, you can buy this 1 inch tubular elastic online, it’s not expensive at all and it comes in a 25 ft roll which will last for quite some time when cutting it at 1½ inches at a time.

Here is the link to where you can buy a box of “1 inch tubular elastic” be sure to grab a box for your next trip and enjoy catching some nice catfish instead of wasting fishing time and always re-baiting a hook.

When skipjack hit they leave little to the imagination, they are mean! And can be fun to catch. Your line will go tight in a sudden rush and the fish will just keep on moving despite your best efforts to control them, they love to jump.

The fight of a skipjack is characterized by strong, fast runs and sudden rushes to the surface displaying their flashy acrobatics, destroying crappie jigs and plastic grubs. they dont call them Tennessee tarpons for nothin!

How to catch skip jack?

The best bait for the trophy cats is skip jack herring and at times, you’ll spend more time catchin your bait as you do actually catfishing because you have to catch skip jack with a rod and reel. This is why this spring time run is an important time for catfisherman.

In the spring from April to June the skip jack will start migration to the tail waters to initially feed and stay to spawn and in this time frame there are thick by the thousands and the easiest time for a catfisherman to collect some bait. When they’re running good it’s not uncommon to catch 1 or 2 every cast. Skip jack can also be caught in the winter months around the hot water discharges from factories along the rivers.

Myself: ill take a couple days of nothing but bait collection, catching a few hundred a day and stocking my freezer with bait for the coming months when the skip jack get scarce in the hot months, 4 or 5 hundred skip jack packed in2 gal. zip lock bags will generally last me until the fall when the skip jack return to the tail waters in the fall to feed.
To catch skip jack you’ll need a med action rod with a spin casting reel spooled with some 14 lb mono.
Skip Jack Rig.

Tie a barrel swivel to the 14 lb main line and tie a 3 foot piece of 20 lb mono leader to the other end of the barrel swivel. Now you will need to tie a marabou jig on the leader about a foot below your swivel leaving a 2 foot piece of leader exposed, now come down anther foot and tie another marabou jig below the last jig leaving 1 foot of leader exposed and once again tie one more jig at the end of your leader completing the skip jack rig.

Look for skipjack along the faster current seams running close to the bank along rocky shores or rip rap. Cast your rig out and retrieve in quickly and hang on.